Chapter Fifty-Four
"Um, you asked me to come by?" Ochaco asked, poking her head in the Design Studio.
Mei looked up from the power armor she was working on. Apparently there needed to be certain standardized safeties that were required to be put in place in all such devices not specifically designed for Heteromorphs, and those suits of power armor that were for non-standard physiologies needed even more safeties to make sure that only the people they were designed for could use them. Given this suit was partially powered and controlled by Mina's Quirk, we hadn't bothered, as, from our preliminary tests, it was intuitive enough that her own in-built mental limiters would be enough, but the Support Commission, a sub-division of the Hero Public Safety Commission, had disagreed. Regardless, the Inventrix shot me a questioning look, assuming, correctly, that I was behind this.
"Yeah, thanks for dropping in," I greeted with a smile, waving her in, Izuku and Asui following the anti-gravity girl. "Mei and I have been working on something that we think you could use." I'd asked the girl in front of me to drop by early this morning over lunch yesterday, and she'd agreed before I'd even explained what for.
The pink haired girl perked up beside me. "Ooohhh! Testing!" she cooed. "Good idea, Partner! Come on, guinea pig, I wanna see our Baby fly!" She popped up out of the guts of Mina's Power Armor, which started to fall over, and I quickly caught, re-sealing it as the Inventrix grabbed the box with the Personal Ionic Thruster System, or PITS, getting a nod from her as I did so. She might seem scatterbrained, but she really wasn't, only hyperfocused, and trusted me to catch the stuff she dropped so she could do even more.
With the bundle in one hand, she grabbed Uraraka's arm with the other, to grab and haul her out the door, and I caught how the brunette's stance automatically shifted to root herself, before she let herself be dragged along, stumbling a little as she did so.
Both Asui and Midoriya froze as their friend was carried away, and I grabbed the cameras, jogging between them and calling, "Come on, we need to catch up." With a touch of OfA I sped up, switching to loping strides to take better advantage of the increased strength, turning the corner to see Mei carrying the other girl, who'd rendered herself weightless, halfway down the stairs and yelling, "Proving Ground Three, Mei!"
"Got it!" my partner called up at me, going two steps at a time, not breaking stride.
"How is she so fast?" Midoriya, crackling slightly, asked from right next to me, having moved far faster.
"I don't know, practice?" I shrugged, leaping over the edge of the stairs and using a lightning limb as an ersatz grappling hook to help me swing around and land at the bottom. Technically we weren't supposed to be using our Quirks unsupervised, but with almost an hour before class started, the halls were fairly empty, and no one really cared.
Asui followed me, using her tongue, while Midoriya just jumped down the stairs at speed, and we caught up to Mei halfway to the warehouse-looking building that I'd reserved, slowing down to a super-powered jog as Ochaco, wide eyed and thoroughly confused, looked to me for help. Interestingly, she didn't seem nauseous in the slightest, though it'd only been a single minute, but that suggested good things for the usability of our Support Gear.
The anti-gravity girl pressed her thumb to the tips of the other fingers of her free hand and dropped to the ground, Mei letting her go in order to open the door, Uraraka taking a swift step back as Mei went to drag her inside. I put a hand on the pink-haired girl's shoulder and directed her inwards, handing her the cameras instead, which she took off to go set up without missing a beat.
"Right," I said, walking backwards into the proving grounds and extending my arm to flick on the power. As the lights fully came on, it revealed a space which was covered in columns, ramps, floating rings that started to rise up into the air, and more. "So, Uraraka, you've got a pretty good Striker power, but that also means you have the same weakness that most Strikers do, that being mobility," I started to explain.
"Striker?" Midoriya asked, and I realized I'd defaulted to a different universe's power classification. This world only split things up to Emitter, Transformation, and Mutant. The lack of such identifiers made it harder to identify attack vectors, which, in a way, might have been on purpose by the HPSC, to protect their heroes. Then again, it might've been because the limits of what powers could do here weren't as starkly defined as Shards were. "Oh," the boy realized, "because she has to touch things to activate her Quirk!"
I nodded to him, "Exactly. Since she needs to physically touch things, she has to get to them first. However, your Quirk works on yourself, which has opened up some possibilities. Honestly, it was the sexy astronaut thing you've got going on with your costume that gave me the idea."
" S-Sexy!?" the girl in question, who had been following along, repeated, blushing.
I lifted an eyebrow. "Yes? Midoriya, back me up. She looks like an astronaut, but cute, in her hero costume, right? I'm not the only one that sees it?"
Put on the spot, the boy blushed as well, looking down as he tried to respond, "I mean, the space themes are pretty obvious, and look really good on her, not that she wouldn't look good in something else, but the differing color help sets her apart from someone like Thirteen, and her tighter costume would help with mobility in three dimensions, not that I was staring, I was just appreciating the design, and it's really more about how you use your Quirk than your costume, though a good costume can muttermuttermuttermutter."
At which point the girl in question, hiding her face in her hands, accidentally activated her power and started to float away. I lassoed her leg with a lightning limb and pulled her back down to earth. "Asui?"
The frog girl considered her friend, putting an oversized finger to her cheek. "I see it," she declared with a shrug.
"Uraraka," I said, snapping my fingers, getting her attention as she very clearly didn't look at Izuku, who was just as clearly not looking at her. "With your power, you can use it on yourself and jump, obviously, but once you've left the ground, the only way you can move is to drop back to the ground, and that seems... ill advised, given how easy it is to predict parabolic arcs when you aren't moving at a hundred miles per hour like Midoriya. Er, um, a hundred sixty kilometers per hour," I corrected at their blank looks, Japan using the metric system, though familiar enough with Imperial to use foot measurements without issue.
"So, you've invented a grappling system, like how astronauts tether to things?" Midoriya questioned, and I froze.
I turned to my partner, who was letting me do the pitch, as she told me I 'was better at dealing with hero-types' than she was. "We need to do some testing to determine the targeting of her Quirk. You have flex wire?" I checked, and the look I got from Mei showed me that my partner doubted my sanity, if I had to ask such a thing. "Good." I turned back to the others, who were looking at me, confused. "No, but good idea, and I'll need to look into some things. No, we've found a way to make her fly. Mei, you want to explain how?"
The inventrix sprung forward, grinning, glad to show her baby off, even if the other three didn't understand half of what she said. They got enough, though, and Uraraka donned the harness which fit over her shirt, skirt, tights, and shoes. The foot-thrusters weren't on over her heels, as making the thrusters hardy enough to survive a kick was difficult, but instead were a paired assembly that would go around her ankles instead, lifted high enough on her legs to not be damaged by a heel-strike.
Power Loader had gotten us the schematics of her original costume, while encouraging us to 'spruce up' my classmate's original ideas, as the design company that'd made them had focused on style over function. This was actually purposeful on UA's part, as it was easier to add functionality to an iconic design then to add style to a utilitarian one. Furthermore, it helped the students come into their own, getting exactly what they asked for, and learning to seek improvements themselves, while still in a safe space (ignoring things like the USJ incident), which would be a lesson they carried forward.
Uraraka's leg armor was actually more like a space-age sabaton/greave combo, where the top of her feet and legs was covered with a solid, inflexible piece of material and her soft-topped, armored sole boots went under, allowing her to move easily, but, if you dropped a truck on her foot, she'd be just fine. However, to help her move, while they looked large, they were incredibly light, using hypertech materials to make a secure shell. It was that fact, and their hollowness, that meant they had a good amount of space for upgrades.
"Now, we've made it so that it only turns on when you negate its gravity, and you'll need to tense the muscles in your hands, feet, or back to activate them," I explained. "We're working on different control methods to make it easier to use. No, not that one," I added, as Mei opened her mouth.
"What one?" Asui asked, as we watched Ochaco use her power on herself, and then immediately sent herself spinning as she activated the thruster on one hand, reflexively turning on the others and flailing, which just made things worse.
"Throw yourself out like a starfish!" I ordered, the girl doing so, starting to slow her spinning as she drifted five feet off the ground. "Neural tap," I told the frog-girl beside me. "It'd make it thought-controlled but require cybernetics, and not only are the laws on that really strict, it's generally a bad idea. Probably why the laws are really strict."
Mei pouted, "But the functionality-"
" Doesn't outweigh the risk," I cut her off, the argument quickly becoming an old one. "She gets a feedback loop, or some kind of anti-tech attack, while wearing this, she'll drop and maybe get some muscle cramps as the system fries. A neural tap would fry parts of her brain."
The frog girl blinked her huge eyes. "That'd be bad."
"Yes," I stressed as Ochaco slowed to a stop, the thrusters having small stabilizers built in. Not enough to interfere with the flight, but enough to, when used constantly like they were now, reduced the internal vectors to allow a more predictable flight path and less delta-v requirements for corrections. They could be disabled, and, when she was good enough with the PITS, we'd probably let her, to pull the more ridiculous things that might be possible with the rig. For now, though, the stabilizers were training wheels that the girl, even as used to zero-gravity conditions as she was, desperately needed.
As the girl started to accelerate, only to panic and accelerate more, I called, "Turn and burn, Ochaco! And use your hand and feet thrusters if you need to turn!" She listened, pointing her hands down, rising, before shifting them forward and down, holding them away from herself, which allowed her to twist on her center of gravity, still being pushed forward, then up, until she was pointed so she was flying backwards and tensed, opening up the back-mounted, really shoulder and waist mounted, ionic thrusters to full, and slowing herself down.
She stopped, accelerating back towards the ground, and tried to shut off the thrusters, but kept tensing and opening them back up. In response, she pushed her feet and hands in front of her, like she was trying to touch her toes, and opened them up, the four sets of thrusters negating her forward thrust from the back-mounted engines, and she slowly worked her way to the ground, releasing her Quirk to land on padded surface, hyperventilating.
Midoriya was beside her in an instant, making sure she was okay, and she clamped onto him like she was drowning, as Mei checked the cameras while Asui and I approached the couple. "That was amazing," the green haired boy praised, grinning, which helped settle the girl's nerves. "When you get that working, you'll be just like Air Jet, only able to do a lot more! And the way you moved, I'm not sure I could do that!"
"R-really?" the girl asked a little shakily.
"Really!" Izuku smiled with honest appreciation. "I'd be flying around, hitting everything, but you took to it really well!"
I let them have their moment, faces inches away from each other, before I finally cleared my throat and they seemed to recognized how close they were, both pulling away a bit, but only Ochaco letting go. "Alright, so, glad to see it works," I said. "Let's talk tweaks. Were the sensors too sensitive, not sensitive enough, or is it just a matter of getting used to them?"
We hashed out the details, tuning the back-mounted jets to take more input to turn on, splitting the muscle-reading sensors linkage to let her turn on the left or right set individually, allowing her a degree of Y-rotation that'd take a bit more to get used to, but she found, ironically, easier to control.
I checked the clock, and we'd been at it for over half an hour, our testing time starting to run out. "Alright, let's do some basic testing with the grappling hook idea. Mei, the wire?"
She tossed me the spool, and I unraveled a length, my partner tossing me the cutter before I could even ask. It was the work of movements to function a crude lasso, and I direct Uraraka over to a wall studded with padded posts sticking out of it, to simulate climbing in such a way that, if you messed up, you wouldn't hit every branch on the way down hard enough to hurt.
"Okay, we're gonna try this two different ways. Part one, use this to grab one of the posts, null yourself, and pull up. Mei, can you turn off the thrusters so they don't get in the way?" My partner shot me a thumbs up, tapping away at her tablet, and the lights on the harness went out. "Okay, go for it."
It took the girl a few tries, and she finally commented, after hitting not the post she was aiming for, but the one next to it, "I don't know how you do this, Tsu!"
"Practice," the other girl replied, deadpan.
Ochaco nulled herself, then yanked, able to move herself up, though the angle was odd. She adapted, though, pulling in the loose length of wire around herself to ride the now-taught cord in an arc, tugging it again to change her vector to get closer. She did bounce off the padded wall, but got to the post successfully, calling down. "Um, now what?"
"Izuku, go up and retrieve her," I ordered, the boy nodding and taking off in a burst of green sparks, carrying the girl back down in his arms, the girl just a little reluctant to get back on her feet. "Okay, test two. Null yourself first, then try and lasso."
She did, and the problems became immediately apparent. First of all, lacking the effects of gravity, her throws were radically different, and the second was that Newton's Third Law decided to rear its head, making the girl in question spin in the opposite direction of her own throw.
"Midoriya, stabilize her," I ordered, "she can figure out how to deal with it later."
He did, and soon enough she got her lasso around a peg, repeating her previous performance, if with a bit more skill. "Alright, still doable. Retrieve her, please," I requested, Deku taking off, as I turned to Mei. "Got some ideas?"
"Do I!" she grinned. "Lasso's are so last millennia, but a Van Der Waals tag could make a beautiful Baby!"
I blinked, "Wait, how?"
Hatsume grinned, "Oh, let's go back to the lab! I'm gonna blow your mind, partner!"
I took a step in that direction, but paused. "Damnit, we'll have to do it tomorrow, we've got, like, five minutes left. Before we go, Asui, Midoriya, you guys have anything you want? Or any weaknesses we can cover for you?"
Izuku looked down. "Um, if you could make me some reinforced boots, that'd be nice," he muttered, and I had to resist rolling my eyes, as of course he'd want the same thing as Canon. Then again, he had the same power, so the same needs would be present.
Turning to Asui, she dithered for a second, looking to Midoriya who nodded. "I get sleepy when I get cold, ribbit," she admitted.
"Integrated heater?" I asked Mei, "Kinetic recharged battery?"
The girl considered it, before waving a hand my way. "Too easy. You do it," she told me.
Froppy frowned at the dismissal, but I quickly explained, "She means it'd take me an hour to build, tops. Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't build it into your costume already."
"That simple?" the large-eyed girl asked, disbelievingly. I nodded, and she sighed. "I didn't want to put my weakness on record, ribbit."
I snorted. "You're a cold-blooded heteromorph. If they could, that's the first thing any Villain would try as soon as they see you. Better to close up your weaknesses than hope that no one figures them out. I'll see if I can have it done before Friday."
"Um, there's something else I'd like to try," Midoriya said, getting our attention. He walked over to the lasso Ochaco was holding, and requested, "Can you try to use your Quirk on me, through the rope?"
That's not how her Quirk works, I wanted to say, but stopped, as, well, I didn't know that. If her Quirk required her to touch things, that shouldn't work, as while she was touching the wire, she wasn't touching what the wire touched. However, the girl concentrated, and, with the muted pink glow of her Quirk activating, Midoriya started to lift into the air.
"Well, that changes things," I muttered, eyes wide, looking over to Mei, who sidled up to me.
"Can, can you skip class? Pleeaase? For Me?" my partner begged.
For a moment, I was tempted, but I couldn't exactly call in sick, and Aizawa would just drag me to class anyways. "I'm not doing anything after school," I gave, having been pretty firm on only showing up early before, but if Ochaco could use her Quirk through secondary mediums, that opened up a lot of possibilities. Mei squeed, hugging me, and I turned to look to Uraraka. "Come early Wednesday, and we'll have some prototypes for you to test. This, this is huge. And Midoriya," I added, nodding to the boy. "Thanks, I never would've thought of that without you."
"I, it was nothing," the boy sputtered.
"Thank you!" Ochaco added, giving the boy a hug, before they both blushed and she quickly let go.
Before we could say anything more, the warning bell rang, and we all froze. "Deku, grab Asui and Uraraka, and get them back, I'll take Mei and meet you there," I ordered, Aizawa very particular about people being late. He nodded and quickly picked up both girls before, sparking, he blasted out the door while I rushed over to grab one camera, Mei already picking up the others, the girl quickly jumping on my back.
"High-ho Sparky, away!" my partner called, out, and I had to laugh as I sent a limb to turn off the lights and rushed off to the Design Studio on legs of lightning. While unusual, this had been fun, and I was looking forward to seeing what else we could create!
Weeks passed, and more work was done. Finals closed in on us, and with that, the pressure to succeed ramped up. Momo, of course, hosted another study session for her fellow students, and the two of us tag teamed to help the others understand the topics they were struggling with. The same group as last time was there, along with Sero, the tape guy; and Sato, who I still had a hard time not calling Diabeetus in my head. This time, I was in my element, conveying concepts and clearing up confusion, while Momo taught classical Japanese, and Midoriya, with some prodding, started to help everyone else with our branding and PR class, Modern Hero Art History.
Soon enough, the exams were upon us, and they were grueling, more akin to my college finals than anything I remembered from high-school, but I was more than prepared for them, as was Mina. Talking about the test afterwards, she wasn't exactly acing them, but her incorrect answers were few and with a modicum of distance between them.
On the last day, a Thursday, the class collectively slumped in relief when the last test, English, wrapped up. As a native speaker it wasn't that hard for me, but, unfortunately, I'd learned it as a native speaker so, while I knew when something was wrong, explaining why was a bit more difficult. And, yes, I had my freaking degree in the subject, but in America that meant I got a degree in English literature more than the actual language itself.
"I feel like my brains are running out of my ears," Mina complained as we walked out of class, stretching. I stretched as well, the two of us moving in near unison, though, whether it be Body Talent or my copied regeneration, I didn't have the strain in my back nor the ache in my hand that I expected from having spent several hours near-constantly writing.
"I think I did fairly well," Momo murmured to herself. "Denki, question number seventy-four, about pluperfect constructions?"
"It was ~I had done it last Tuesday, but I couldn't find you.~ Did you say ~I have done it last Tuesday~?" I checked, only remembering the question number as I had to remember what the heck the pluperfect form even was, and she shook her head with a sigh of relief. "You guys want to hang out?"
My lover considered that, before shaking her head. "Let's do that tomorrow, Sparky. I just wanna sleep. Are ya sure it isn't robots? Because it'd be way easier if it's robots."
"Tell ya what, if it's robots, dinner's on me," I smiled over towards Momo, "Though not at some of the places you're used to. I don't think my wallet could take that."
The girl's eyes widened in horror, "I would n ever! To abuse your generosity like that would be... Oh, that's a joke, isn't it?" she questioned, seeing our smiles. "My apologies."
"Don't worry about it, YaoMomo!" Mina grinned, but her expression fell. "But are you sure it's gonna be fighting our teachers?" she asked me.
I shrugged. "It just makes sense. That or other Pros. Think about it, with how we've grown, we could probably take a small army of robots. Each. Hell, I passed the entrance exam by taking out close to thirty of the damn things, and one of the big ones, and I've only gotten better. You'd melt right through them, Mina, and Momo, as long as they gave you even thirty seconds of breathing room, you'd likely blow them all to kingdom come."
"Very good, Volt-aire! But please, do not tell the others!" a voice came from my elbow, and I froze, looking down to see the principal, a cup of tea in his paws.
"You mean, Denki's correct?" Momo asked, shocked, glancing my way, "Not that there's anything surprising about that."
The chimera nodded, "He is indeed. Normal years it would be robots, but your class's extraordinary potential requires extraordinary challenges."
"But, fighting the teachers?" Yaoyorozu questioned. "No disrespect, principal Nezu, but how can we be expected to defeat such experienced and skilled opponents?"
"Oh ho ho, that wouldn't be a fair fight, would it. Why don't you tell them the rest, Mr. Kaminari?" the principal requested, and I winced.
As both girls turned to look at me, I explained, "They'll be weighed down. It won't be that much of an impediment for ranged heroes like Snipe, Present Mic, or Thirteen, but Mei and I developed some variable training weights that should help a good deal. I suspected it'd be something like this before, but that kind of confirmed it. And we made ten pairs of them. Which means we're either fighting them one at a time, or we're doing so in pairs. Except for one." I locked eyes with Nezu. "Am I the one that's fighting alone?"
"You are not," the nonhuman administrator informed me, and I nodded, thankful for that. "Do you think you'd succeed if you were?"
"No. Well, except for Midnight," I told him. My Defense would negate it, and it was better to plant the seeds of my immunity from something I'd experienced, then for it to come out of nowhere.
The humanoid mammal took a sip of his tea. "Truly? I would have expected, with your performance against Nomu, and your performance at the Sports Festival, not to mention your training under Hawks, you would more highly value your abilities."
I shook my head. "It's not that, and I'd still fight, but I have to assume our teachers have all been Pros for a reason. Midnight's just a bad matchup, but, while I'm hardened against toxins, I'm still susceptible to sudden lead poisoning."
"I trust Snipe to avoid critical organs," Nezu commented with a smile, but considered me closely. "Aizawa passed along your insight with Mr. Ida. Do you have any others?"
I hesitated, and, despite myself, glanced to Mina, who nodded minutely. Momo missed it, but the chimera obviously did not, though he didn't say any more. "It's, it's the summer camp. I like the idea, but after the USJ, and with them hitting Hosu, it seems... foolish. Sir."
"It is," Nezu nodded. "But precautions have been taken, and a few more may be in order. If we let the mere presence of Villains control our actions, they have already won. Take it from me, living in fear is no life at all. Trust me, Mr. Kaminari. I will do all I can to make sure you are safe."
Which wasn't you will be safe, but it was as much as I was going to get. I sighed, nodding, "Thank you, Sir."
"Just doing my job," the mammal smiled. "Now I believe I have taken up enough of your time, and I believe you have a train to catch. Including you, Mr. Kaminari. You seem tired, and we wouldn't want an accident to occur."
I blinked. He knows I skate the rails, I realized. Which... yes, of course he does. I nodded, "Will do, sir."
The principal tottered off, and the three of us started to walk for the exit. "See, they're taking care of it, Sparky," Mina teased slightly, smiling, but with a worry that hadn't been there before.
"Um, yeah, that... that helps," I admitted, looking to the other two, and noticing they were both a bit tenser than they were before. "What's wrong? They're handling it."
Both girls shared a look. "Your worries seemed... excessive," Momo admitted. "No offense meant, but it was rather endearing, how much you care. Now..."
"Now maybe you were right," Mina said, picking up for the other girl. "And that, that's kinda freaky."
I considered that. "Yeah, but, consider where we were at the beginning of the year, and where we are now. We're strong enough we can handle ourselves, or at least get away, and we're only getting better."
My girlfriend considered that, nodding. "Yeah, we have gotten kinda Gucci, haven't we Momo?"
"I... I don't know what that means," the other girl admitted, "But we have made tremendous progress, haven't we?"
"We have," I declared, and a comfortable silence fell between us, Momo peeling off to be driven home in her limo, Mina and I riding together until we had to change trains.
"Seeya tomorrow, Sparky," Mina said, playfully grabbing my tie and pulling me down into a kiss, before prancing onto her train, waving to me as it pulled away.
I smiled, relaxing as I took my own train home, walking the streets normally. I headed inside my house and called, "I'm home, Mom!"
"Denki, one of your teachers is here!" she called back, and my peaceful mindset shattered, worry setting in. Are they going to reprimand me for telling my friends about the practical? "He says it's nothing bad!"
I relaxed a little, taking my shoes off, frowning as I noticed there wasn't an extra pair by the door. What could it be about?
I turned the corner and froze, spotting the man in formal clothing, a metal collar around his neck, his head and hands a dark purple mist with glowing yellow eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Kaminari," Kurogiri, teleporter for the League of Villains, greeted me genially. "I'd like to have a few words with you about an educational opportunity."
AN: As always, the next three chapters are up on !